1  K/ZjL O  JL  .12/ J[\  1 V XZ/ vJT/  x JL  L 

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A  UTHOR: 


ORGAN,  MORRIS 
HICKY 


TITLE: 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE 
THE  NEW  YORK  LATIN 


PLACE: 


BROO 


LYN 


DATE: 


03 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


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■■■•■•VI 


Morgan,  Mj-orris^  H^icky^,   1859-1910« 

An  address  before  the  New  York  Latin  club  by 
•«•  M.H.  Morgan  •••  delivered  Nov.  22,  1902  ••• 
entitled:  Miscelliones, ..   Brooklyn,  1903« 
37  p.   18^  cm. 

.   •  1 

Reprint  no«  2  from  the  New  York  Latin  leaflet, 
1902-03. 


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Restrictions  on  Use: 


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MflNUFfiCTURED   TO   fillM   STPNDflRDS 
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An  Address  Before 
The  New  York  Latin  Club  by 
Professor  M  H  Morgan  of 
Harvard  University 


Delivered  Nov  22  ignj  ,it  'llie  Hotel  A.:)(.rt 

ENTni-ED- 

MISCELLIONES 


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From  The  New  York  Lcitin  Leaflet,  i901>-'0, 
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An  Address  Before 
The  New  York  Latin  Club  by 
Professor  M  M  Morgan  of 
Harvard  University 


Delivered  Nov  22  1902  at  The  Hotel  Albert 


ENTITLED 


MISCELLIONES 


Reprint  No  2 

From  The  New  York  Latin  Leaflet,  1902-'03 

Eastern  District  High  School 

Brooklyn-New  York 

1903 


TO 

ARTHUR  S  SOMERS 

NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 

FREDERICK  D  MOLLENHAUER 

The  following  address  is  dedicated  by  The  New  York 

Latin  Club  in  recognition  of  their  moral  support 

of  and  practical  generosity  to  the  New 

York  High  School  College  Entrance 

Scholarship  Fund 


Vl 


434398 


MISCELLIONES 

"Miscelliones    appellantur   qui    non    certae   sunt    sententiae, 
sed   variorum   mixtorumque  indicorum   sunt." 


On  the  24th  of  May,  1660,  Mr.  Samuel  Pepys,  the 
great  EngHsh  annalist,  made  the  following  entry  in 
his  diary : 

"Up.  and  made  myself  as  fine  as  I  could,  with  the 
linning  stockings  on  and  wide  canons  that  I  bought 
the  other  day  at  Hague." 

But  some  time  later  we  find  the  following  entry : 

"31st. — To  church;  and  with  my  mourning  very 
handsome,  and  new  periwigg,  make  a  great  show." 

Is  there  a  tailor  among  us,  or  lover  of  fine  clothes, 
who  can  tell  us  whether  there  is  anything  much  more 
animating  in  a  suit  of  mourning  and  a  periwigg  than 
in  a  pair  of  imported  stockings  with  wide  canons? 
If  not,  why  should  Mr.  Pepys  have  used  the  present 
tense  "make"  in  his  narrative  of  the  one,  but  the 
past  tense  "made"  in  his  narrative  of  the  other? 

Let  us  now  go  back  some  two  thousand  years  and 
examine  the  familiar  opening  lines  of  Xenophon'? 
Anabasis: 


"To  Darius  and  Parysatis  are  horn  two  sons,  the 
elder  Artaxerxes,  and  the  younger  Cyrus."  But  in 
the  next  sentence:  "Now  when  Darius  lay  sick  and 
suspected  that  his  end  was  nigh,  he  wished  both  his 
sons  to  be  with  him." 

Why  does  the  narrator  put  the  commonplace  regis- 
try of  birth  into  the  present  tense,  but  employ  the 
past  to  describe  the  longing  of  a  dying  father  for 
his  sons? 

Here  are  questions  in  seeking  answer  to  which  we 
get  but  cold  comfort  from  the  school  grammars, 
Greek  or  Latin,  wOiich  we  teachers  have  been  so 
faithfully  fumbling  these  many  years.  One  tells  us 
that  the  present  is  employed  "to  give  a  more  ani- 
mated statement  of  past  events";  another  that  it  is 
used  "as  a  lively  representation  of  the  past" ;  a 
third  informs  us  that  "this  usage,  common  in  all 
language,  comes  from  imagining  past  events  as  going 
on  before  our  eyes".  One  of  the  very  latest  says: 
"In  vivid  narration  the  speaker  may  for  the  moment 
feci  that  he  is  living  the  past  over  again  and  so  may 

use  the  present  tense  in  describing  events  already 
past."  Then  follow  three  examples,  and  the  third  is 
the  first  sentence  in  the  Anabasis!  What?  Did 
Xenophon  feel  that  he  was  "living  over  again"  the 
days  when  Parysatis  was  brought  to  bed  of  her  two 
sons?  Is  Livy's  soul  enthralled  by  the  vividness  of 
past  events  when  he  gives  us  in  his  third  chapter 
that  long  line  of  reigns  and  genealogies: 

"Silvius  deinde  regnat ;  is  Aeneam  Silvium  creat. 
Agrippa  inde  regnat.    Proca  deinde  regnat;  is  Numi- 


IF 


t 


i 


torerh  procreat;  Numitori  regnum  Silviae  gentis 
legpf. 

Not  one  whit  more,  I  warrant,  than  the  Evangelist 
when  he  wrote,  using  the  past  tense :  "Abraham  be- 
gat Isaac;  and  Isaac  begat  Jacob;  and  Jacob  begat 
Judas  and  his  brethren." 

But  I  am  sure  that  I  need  not  press  this  point 
further,  for  it  must  be  perfectly  obvious  to  you  that 
the  present  tense  in  the  sentences  which  I  have 
quoted  from  Pepys,  from  Xenoprton,  and  from  Livy, 
is  not  accounted  for  under  the  usual  treatment  of 
the  Historical  Present  in  our  sclTOol-books.  The 
term  itself  is  a  bad  one,  for  it  does  not  suggest 
the  vivid  narration  of  past  events  which  it  undoubt- 
edly is  the  function  of  the  present  tense  sometimes 
to  express ;  and  the  explanations  are  defective  be- 
cause they  do  not  account  for  the  statement,  in  this 
tense,  of  dull,  inanimate,  historical  facts.  It  must  be 
clear  that  we  have  here  two  distinct  usages  which 
ought  not  to  be  confused  and  treated  under  the  same 
head  in  a  single  section  of  a  grammar.  There  is 
nothing  very  new  in  what  I  am  saying ;  and  I  fancy 
that  the  distinction  which  should  be  drawn  is 
familiar  to  not  a  few  of  you.  If  I  repeat  it  here,  it 
is  because  new  school  grammars  and  editions  of  the 
authors  continue  to  ignore  it,  and  because  I  remem- 
ber how  absurdly  inconsistent  the  section  on  the 
historical  present  and  the  examples  under  it  used  to 
seem  to  me  in  the  grammars  which  I  studied  when 
I  was  a  schoolboy.  The  distinction  was  drawn  by 
Professor    Lane    in   his    Latin    Grammar,    and    it    is 

9 


recognized  by  Professor  Gildersleeve  in  his  invalu- 
able  new    book   on   the    Syntax   of   Classical   Greek. 
Into  the  question  whether  the  two  kinds  of  presents 
are    the    same    in    origin    or    not.    I    do    not    now 
enter.     I   am   talkmg  now   merely   of  usage   by    the 
Greek   and    Latin    authors    in   their    writings   as    we 
have  them:  not  of  the  origins  of  usage.     And  I  will 
venture   here   to  pause  and   to  interject   the   remark 
that   I  am  strongly  of  opinion   that  some  of  us  are 
attaching  too  much  attention  to  "origins"  in  a  good 
many   departments   of  our   teaching.     The  first  and 
all    important    thing   is   that   our   pupils,   whether   in 
schools  or   in   colleges,   should   be    able   to   read   the 
authors  with  tmdcrstanding  and  appreciation;  and  it 
will  in  general  be  found  that  this  twofold  task— and 
particularly  the  latter  part  of  it,  the  appreciation  of 
the   authors— is   all    that   a    schoolboy,   or   a   college 
student   until   he  gets  a  good  deal   more  than   half- 
way through  his  college  course,  can  accomplish.     He 
ought    to    be    taught    what    each    word    or    phrase 
meant  to  the  writer  who  penned  it;   he  need  know 
nothmg  about  the  semi-civilized  Indo-European  who 
first  mouthed  it  out,  or  something  like  it.    He  must 
know  the   manners  and   customs  of  the  time  about 
which   he   is    studying,   not   necessarily  their   evolu- 
tion up  from  prehistoric  man.     It  matters  very  little 
to  him  how  the  adjective  nobilis  is  formed;  whether 
from   no.  and  -bilis  or   from  a  hypothetical   ^nohus 
and  -ihs;  but  it  ought  to  be  impressed  upon  him  that 
the  word  doesn't  mean  noble  at  all ;  just  as  heouc^ht 
to   know    that    when    people   called    Cicero   a    nolus  ' 

10 


homo  they  didn't  mean  that  he  was  a  bourgeois  or 
of  a  low,  mean  family.  And  so  with  our  present 
tense;  never  mind  its  origin  till  much  later,  if  ever; 
but  let  us  make  sure  that  our  students  see  what  it 
indicates. 

There  is,  then,  in  the  usage  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
authors  an  Annalistic  or  Note-book  present,  which 
is  employed  in  brief  historical  or  personal  memo- 
randa, "to  note  incidents  day  by  day  or  year  by  year 
as  they  occur."  Of  this  present  I  have  given  ex- 
amples already,  and  those  of  you  who  keep  diaries 
make  use  of  it  very  often.  And  there  is  also  a 
Present  of  Vivid  Narration,  a  rhetorical  device,  used 
consciously  to  represent  with  animation  a  past  action 
as  if  it  were  going  on  at  the  time  of  writing. 

One  of  the  besi:  examples  of  this  kind  of  present 
is  to  be  found  in  the  first  book  of  the  ^neid  in  the 
description  of  that  storm  which  ^olus  blows  up  at 
the  request  of  Juno: 

"When  this  was  said,  with  spear  reversed  he  smote 
the  mountain  on  its  side;  and  instantly  the  winds, 
as  it  were  a  battle  line,  rush  forth  and  sweep  over 
the  lands  in  a  cyclone.  They've  settled  on  the  sea 
(observe  the  perfect  definite),  and  Eurus  and  Notus 
side  by  side  upheave  it  all  from  its  very  bottom — 
Africus,  too,  teeming  with  the  hurricane — and  huge 
are  the  waves  which  they  roll  to  the  strand.  Then 
ensues  the  cry  of  men  and  the  creaking  of  cordage. 
Clouds  of  a  sudden  pluck  away  the  daylight  from 
the  Teucrians'  eyes ;  dark  night  broods  upon  the  sea. 
The  heaven  hath  thundered   (perfect  definite  again) 

11 


and  the  ether  flashes  with  fire  on  fire." 

Wonderful  indeed  is  the  vivifying  effect  of  this 
present  when  it  is  rightly  used  and  in  moderation. 
It  can  he  overworked :  witness  those  English  novels 
written  by  "the  Duchess",  a  great  favorite,  I  believe, 
with  the  ladies,  though,  of  course,  men  never  read 
her.  I  am  told  that  the  present  of  vivid  narration 
is  the  only  tense  which  she  employs.  But  we  must 
beware  of  seeing  a  vivid  present  where  it  is  not 
really  found;  and  this  brings  me  to  another  passage 
which  stands  a  little  earlier  in  the  same  book  of 
the  v?ineid. 

The  goddess  Juno,  you  remember,  utters  an  im- 
passioned complaint  at  the  apparent  escape  of  the 
Trojans  from  her  vengeance,  and  then  : 

Talia  flammato  secum  dea  corde  volutans, 
Nimborum  in  patriam,  loca  feta  furentibus  austris, 
Aeoliam  venit. 

"To  ^olia  doth  she  come."  Here  indeed  in  'i'euit 
we  do  have  an  example  of  the  present  of  vivid  nar- 
ration.    But  what  follows?     I  translate  thus: 

"Here,  in  a  cavern  huge,  King  .^olus  subdues 
unto  his  rule  the  struggling  winds  and  sounding 
tempests,  bridling  them  with  chains  and  in  a  dun- 
geon. They  in  resentment  chafe  about  the  barriers 
while  the  mountain  mightily  resounds;  high  in  his 
hold  sits  .^Lolus,  sceptre  in  hand,  and  calms  their 
spirits  and  abates  their  angry  passions."  Now  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  hear  these  six  presents,  premit, 
fremat,  fremunt,  sedct,  mollit  and  tcmpcrat  explained 


18 


as  historical  presents,  like  venit;  but  they  are  far 
from  being  such.  The  passage  contains  a  description 
of  the  functions  of  the  god  of  i\\t  winds,  who  is  of 
course  thought  of  by  the  poet  as  an  active  existing 
divinity.  He  is  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  gods, 
and  any  ancient  reader  of  Virgil  who  believed  in  the 
imported  Greek  mythology  must  believe  in  ^olu? 
along  with  the  rest.  No  room  for  a  historical  present 
here,  for  we  are  dealing  with  pure  present  time.  And 
the  next  sentence,  as  it  happens,  contains  a  point  of 
syntax  which  is,  in  my  opinion,  constantly  misinter- 
preted even  in  our  best  editions.     It  reads  thus: 

Ni   faciat,  maria   ac  terras  caelumque  profundum 

Quippe  ferant  rapidi  secum  verrantque  per  auras. 

"Imagine  him  not  doing  so,  they  would  surely 
whirl  along  with  them  impetuously  seas,  lands,  and 
the  deep  vault  of  heaven,  and  sweep  them  through 
the  air." 

This  conditional  sentence  is  not  a  "condition  con- 
trary to  fact";  it  does  not  denote  unfulfilled  or  non- 
occurrent  action.  It  is  true  that  in  the  old  Latin  of 
Plautus  we  do  find  such  conditions  sometimes  ex- 
pressed by  the  present  subjunctive;  it  is  true  also 
that  we  find  in  Augustan  poets,  perhaps  in  Virgil, 
some  imitations  of  this  usage.  But  ours  is  not  one 
of  them;  it  is  nothing  but  the  common  use  of  the 
subjunctive  in  a  future  condition;  it  is  equivalent  to 
"If  he  should  cease  to  restrain  them,  they  would 
whirl  forth". 

And  there  is  another  very  striking  example  of  this 
same  sort  of  a  present  subjunctive  also  introduced 

13 


by  111,  in  the  sixth  book  of  the  ^neid,  which  is 
also  wrongly  interpreted  as  a  contrary  to  fact  con- 
dition in  many  editions.  It  is  the  more  interesting  to 
us  to-day  because  it  is  preceded  by  an  excellent  ex- 
ample of  the  present  of  vivid  narration,  and  in- 
deed the  whole  passage  is  animate  with  life,  .^neas 
and  the  Sibyl  have  begun  their  descent  to  Hades; 
and  the  poet  first  sketches  in  a  few  verses  the  awful 
shapes  that  meet  their  eyes— Fear,  Famine,  the 
Furies,  the  trees  of  dreams,  the  stables  of  the  cen- 
taurs, Chimaera,  Hydra  and  Gorgons.  In  telling  of 
all  these  he  uses  that  same  present  tense  which  he 
used  in  his  account  of  .^olus— the  real  present,  for 
they  are  as  truly  existent  as  ^olus  himself.  But  in 
the  next  verse  comes  the  picture  of  /Eneas'  sudden 
fright.  The  first  word  is  a  present  tense,  corripit, 
no  longer  a  true  present,  but  the  present  of  vivid 
narration  : 

Corripit    hie    subita    trepidus    formidine    ferrum 
Aeneas,  strictamque  aciem  venientibus  offert, 
Et,  ni  docta  comes  tenues  sine  corpore  vitas 
Admoneat  volitare  cava  sub   imagine  formae, 
Irruat,  et  frustra  ferro  diverberet  umbras. 
"Here  in  the  terror  of  sudden  alarm  ^neas  plucks 
forth    his   brand   and    presents    the    drawn    point    at 
them  as  they  come,  and  let  not  his  wise  mentor  warn 
him  that   they  are  but   semblances  of  lives   without 
flesh,  flitting  in  hollow  mockery  of  form,  he  would 
be  charging  them  and  beating  the  shadows  this  way 
and  that  with  his  brand,  and  all  in  vain." 


Could  anything  be  more  vividly  put?  It  is  hardly 
translatable*  in  its  lively  anticipation  into  our  sober 
English  tongue.  How  can  an  editor  find  it  in  hia 
heart  to  note:  "the  present  subjunctive  is  used  here 
for  the  imperfect  in  a  condition  contrary  to  fact"? 
Virgil,  I  warrant,  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing. 
How  could  he,  starting  with  a  vivid  present,  follow 
it  up  with  the  self-denying  ordinance  of  a  contrary 
10  fact  idea? 

But  with  regard  to  these  clauses  with  ni,  there 
is  perhaps  something  to  be  said  for  the  editors,  who 
have  not,  poor  men,  the  time  to  investigate  every 
little  point  for  themselves.  The  fact  is  that  such 
clauses  have  never  been  thoroughly  brought  together 
from  the  difi"erent  authors  and  systematically  treated 
in  a  proper  manner.  Even  for  single  authors  this 
has  not  been  done.  And  something  still  more  sur- 
prising— suppose  you  wished  to  study  «i-clauses  in 
Virgil.  The  first  thing  to  do  would  be  to  collect 
them  all.  Easy  enough,  you  say,  from  the  Index  to 
Virgil.  But  here  is  the  surprising  thing — there  is 
no  modern  index  to  Virgil.  Is  not  this  remarkable, 
that  with  all  the  teachers  and  students  who  are 
engaged  throughout  the  world  on  this  author,  there 
should  be  none  who  has  compiled  and  published  a 
complete  index  of  words  of  this  author,  since  Rib- 
beck  published  his  epoch-making  text  fifty  years  ago? 
I  recommend  this  very  much  needed  work  to  your 
thoughts — why  indeed  should  it  not  be  a  joint  pro- 

'I  should  be  sorry  to  have  it  thought  that  my  translation 
is  an  attempt  to  render  the  "original"  meaning  of  this  sub- 
junctive. 

Aw 


duction,   the   labor   divided  among   members  of  this 
club? 

But  I  must  not  linger  too  long  over  questions 
of  syntax  and  usage  of  words,  lest  you  should 
think  me  one  of  those  soulless  creatures  callei' 
gerund-grinders,  who  are  so  constantly  held  up  tc/ 
mockery  by  the  opponents  of  '.he  Classics.  There 
are  puzzles  enough  in  our  field  of  study  for 
students  who  have  no  taste  for  these.  To  keep  for 
the  moment  to  Virgil;  how  full  of  difficulties  is,  for 
instance,  the  sixth  book  of  the  ^neid.  Although  the 
fourth  book,  as  generally  and  wrongly  interpreted, 
is  of  more  interest  to  the  ordinary  modern  reader, 
because  in  it  Virgil  seems  to  make  a  modern  roman- 
tic heroine  out  of  Dido — a  notion  which  of  course 
he  never  had  in  his  mind,  for  Dido  is  but  an  obstacle 
to  the  fulfilment  of  the  mission  of  the  Pilgrim  of 
Destiny.  Aeneas,  fato  profugus,  and  she  is  striving 
to  retard  the  destiny  of  Rome  and  must  be  brushed 
out  of  the  way  as  relentlessly  as  Rome  brushed  her 
city  Carthage  out  )f  the  way — though  the  fourth 
book,  I  say,  is  commonly  read  with  greater  interest, 
yet  it  seems  to  me  that  it  should  have  for  the  serious 
student  by  no  means  the  attractions  that  are  to  be 
found  in  the  sixth.  As  the  ancient  commentator 
Servius  remarks :  "All  Virgil  is  full  of  knowledge, 
but  this  book  holds  the  first  place."  And  one  of  its 
attractions  is  the  riddles  and  enigmas  which  it 
offers  for  our  solution.  It  is  perfectly  certain  that 
this  book  is  the  result  of  wide  and  deep  study  on 
Virgil's  part  into  the   writings  of  his  predecessors, 

16 


both  poets  and  Greek  philosophers,  on  the  nature 
of  the  soul  and  the  state  after  death.  It  is  certain 
also  that  the  book  was  left  uncompleted  by  its 
author,  and  this  is  the  principal  reason  why  it 
presents  to  us  several  all  but  insoluble  problems.  I 
need  not  touch  upon  the  greater  of  them  here;  indeed 
time  would  not  admit  of  it,  and  you  must  have 
pondered  them  for  yourselves.  Why,  for  instance, 
are  the  heroes — the  bello  caduei — in  the  fore  part 
of  Hades,  almost  in  a  place  of  punishment,  instead 
of  in  Elysium  with  Anchises?  Are  they  to  remain 
there  forever,  or  do  they  pass  on  after  a  period  of 
waiting?  I  shall  not  attempt  to-day  to  answer  this 
quesLi>'n,  though  1  have  an  answer  which  all  but 
satisfies  me.  I  would  noi  have  it  wholly  satisfy  me, 
for  if  it  did,  part  of  the  attraction  of  the  book  would 
be  gone.  Instead,  I  shall  speak  merely  of  two 
small  points :  the  Golden  Bough,  and  the  two  Gates 
of  Sleep. 

A  huge  book  in  three  volumes  has  been  written  as 
you  know  by  Mr.  Frazer  on  the  Golden  Bough. 
It  is  an  invaluable  mine  of  folklore  and  one  of 
the  chief  treasures  of  the  students  of  that  fascinating 
subject,  Comparative  Religion.  Yet  I  cannot  see 
how  anybody  can  agree  with  Frazer's  view  that  the 
gqlden  bough  of  Virgil  was  a  sprig  of  mistletoe,. 
Fatal  to  this  view,  as  Andrew  Lang  has  pointed  out, 
is  the  fact  that  Virgil  himself  in  his  description  of 
the  golden  bough  compares  it  to  mistletoe.  Could 
there  be  a  greater  absurdity  than  the  comparison 
of  a  thing  to  itself?     Whatever  the  bough   was,  it 

IT 


was  not  mistletoe.  But  the  carrying  of  it  as  a  pass- 
port into  Hades  was  no  invention  of  Virgil's.  It 
had  been  used  before.  Charon  recognized  it  when 
the  Sibyl  showed  it,  and  it  is  natural  to  think  that 
she  herself  had  carried  it  on  that  former  occasion 
when,  as  she  tells  ^neas,  she  went  down  with 
Hecate  to  the  lower  world.  Virgil  may  have  taken 
it  out  of  some  earlier  poem  now  lost  to  us;  but  my 
own  opinion  is  that  pilgrims  who  visited  the  sacred 
places  about  Lake  Avernus — and  we  know  that  pil- 
grimages to  that  vicinity  lasted  down  to  the  end  of 
heathendom — that  pilgrims  to  the  spot  in  Virgil's 
time  were  required  to  carry  in  their  hands  the  branch 
of  some'- tree,  a  branch  which  Virgil  poetically  calls 
the  golden  bough.  No  doubt  such  pilgrims  would 
be  told  that  some  great  hero  had  carried  the  branch 
when  he  was'fhere  before  them. 

As  for  the  other  point,  about  the  two  gates,  here 
is  again  a  much  discussed  question.  You  remem- 
ber that  Virgil  says  that  one  was  made  of  horn  and 
that  by  it  true  ghosts,  vcrae  umbrae,  passed  out; 
that  the  other  was  of  ivory  and  that  through  it  de- 
ceptive dreams  were  sent  up  to  the  world.  Now 
Anchises  lets  ^neas  out  by  this  latter,  the  ivory 
gate.  Why?  Quot  editores,  tot  seutcntiae,  and  little 
comfort  to  be  got  out  of  any  of  them.  Old  Servius 
said  that  the  poet  opened  the  gate  of  false  dreams 
to  .^neas  in  order  to  indicate  that  the  whole  thing 
was  fiction !  This  comes  pretty  well  from  one  who 
had  told  us  that  the  book  was  full  of  knowledge. 
Neither  will  it  do  to  say  that  yEneas  goes  out  by  the 

18 


ivory  gate  because  he  is  not  a  true  ghost;  he  is  not 
a  deceptive  dream  etiher!  To  say,  as  some  do,  that 
there  is  no  point  whatever  in  the  choice  of  the  ivory 
gate  is  a  confession  of  ignorance  of  Virgil's  method 
in  composing  this  book.  Nothing,  I  venture  to  say, 
absolutely  nothing  is  set  down  here  without  a  rea- 
son. We  must  be  dealing  here  with  a  point  of  doc- 
trine inherited  from  the  past.  The  best  explanation 
of  the  choice  has  been  given,  I  believe,  by  my  friend 
Dr  William  Everett  of  Adams  Academy  in  Quincy. 
It  is  simple  and  wholly  without  those  complicated 
theories  which  some  scholars  have  called  to  their 
aid.  There  was  a  very  widespread  belief,  which 
we  find  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors  from  Plato 
to  Ovid,  that  dreams  before  midnight  were  decep- 
tive dreams.  The  ivory  gate  would  therefore  be 
open  before  midnight,  and  the  poet,  in  letting 
iEneas  out  by  this  gate,  merely  means  to  indicate 
that  he  left  Hades  before  midnight.  He  merely 
indicates  the  time  in  a  poetical  manner.  If  you  look 
back  through  the  book  you  will  find  here  and  ther< 
poetical  indications  of  the  time  that  was  passing 
(though  none  so  vague  to  us  as  this),  from  the 
hour  when  just  before  sunrise  ^neas  started  upon 
the  descent.  He  spent  therefore  considerably  less 
than  24  hours  in  going  and  returning.  So,  too, 
Dante,  the  great  pupil  and  imitator  of  Virgil,  indi- 
cates by  mere  passing  allusions  here  and  there  the 
time  which  he  spent  on  his  journey.  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  this  explanation  of  Dr  Everett's,  which 
was  published  in  the  Classical  Reviezv,  has  not  met 

19 


with  that  general  acceptance  which  I  had  expected 
for  it.     Particularly  the  Germans  scorn  it;  perhaps 
it   is   too  simple   for  them.     But  neither  do  I   feel 
absolutely  certain  of  it  myself;   we  cannot  hope  to 
know  everything.    For  example,  have  you  ever  found 
out  why   it   was  that   Virgil,  in   his  account  of  the 
boat  race,  picked  out  the  particular  Roman  families 
which  he  does  pick  out  to  give  them  the  honor  of 
being  descended  from  the  comrades     of  ^neas?     It 
is  a  very  curious    choice:     "Mnestheus",    he    says, 
"from  whom  comes  the  house  of  Memmius;  Serges- 
tus,  from  whom  the  house  of  Sergius,  and  Cloanthus, 
from  whom  thy  race,  O  Roman  Cluentius."     Think 
of   it — Sergius   and    Cluentius !      We   know   of   only 
three  or  four  Sergiuses  in   Roman  history,  and  the 
only  one  of  any  consequence  is  Sergius  Catiline  the 
conspirator,  for  whom  Virgil  certainly  had  no  admi- 
ration, since  he  puts  him  in  Tartarus,  poised  over  a 
precipice  and  terrorstruck  at  the  awful  faces  of  the 
Furies.     Almost   the   only   Cluentius   that   we  know- 
is   Cicero  s    client,   a   man   of   very    shady   character 
indeed,   in  the  defence   of  whom  Cicero  afterwards 
.«^aid  that  he  had  thrown  lots  of  dust  in  the  eyes  of 
the  jury.     Of  Virgil's  reason  for  choosing  Memmius 
something  can  be  guessed.     It  seems  probable  that 
the   family  of  Memmius  claimed  Venus,  if  not   for 
their  ancestress,  at  least  for  their  patroness,  and  this 
in  turn  may  account  for  Lucretius's  beautiful  open- 
ing address  to  Venus  in  his  poem  dedicated  to  one 
of   that    family.     It   may   be   that    the    Sergian   and 
Cluentian    families    boasted    some    such    connection 

20 


with  the  great  ^neas,  and  possibly  some  light  might 
be  thrown  on  this  puzzling  question  by  collecting 
and  studying  all  the  passages  in  which  Virgil  singles 
out  for  mention  Roman  families  that  were  existing 
in  his  day.  Possibly,  again,  it  might  lead  to  nothing. 
I  said  a  moment  ago  that  we  could  not  hope  to  know 
everything.  Why,  even  Cicero,  our  great  model, 
even  Cicero  didn't  know  everything  about  Latin 
syntax,  if  I  may  return  for  a  moment  to  that  fear- 
some subject. 

For  example,  he  once  used  a  preposition  before 
Piraeus  instead  of  treating  it  as  the  name  of  a  town 
and  so  using  it  without  a  preposition ;  and  in  a  letter 
to  Atticus  practically  admits  that  he  doesn't  know 
whether  he  was  right  or  not.  A  more  famous  ex- 
ample was  that  of  the  inscription  which  Pompey 
was  going  to  have  cut  upon  his  new  temple  of  Vic- 
tory. He  wished  to  inscribe  his  name  and  the  fact 
that  the  temple  was  dedicated  in  his  third  consul- 
ship ;  but  he  didn't  feel  sure  whether  he  ought  to 
say  consul  tertium  or  consul  tertio.  After  anxious 
consideration  he  referred  the  matter  ad  doctissimos 
civitatis — and  natural'y  enough  the  doctissimi  dis- 
agreed. Finally  he  consulted  Cicero,  and  that  great- 
est of  authorities,  being  unwilling  to  commit  himself, 
said:  "Suppose  you  don't  write  either  termination, 
but  simply  stop  at  /,  and  say  consul  tert." — which 
was  accordingly  done.  And  we  cannot  be  too  grate- 
ful to  Cicero  for  leaving  us  this  warning  against 
being  cocksure  about  matters  of  syntax. 

This  little  story  teaches  another  lesson.     You  will 

SI 


observe  that  Pompey  did  not  leave  the  language  of 

his   inscription  to  be   selected   by   his   architect,   but 

consulted  those  whose  business  it  was  to  know  about 

such  things.     It  would  be  well  if  his  example  were 

followed    in    modern    times.      What    extraordinary 

specimens  of  language  and  of  the  alphabet  do  our 

architects    inflict    upon    us    in    their    inscriptions   on 

public  buildings,  and  even  upon  university  buildings 
Take  a  simple  point,  this  matter  of  Roman  numerals. 

Since  ihe  twentieth  century  came  in,  how  often  we 
see  MCM  used  for  1900.  This  is,  of  course,  an 
abbreviation,  and  is  no  more  in  place  than  an  apos- 
trophe and  two  zeros  would  be;  or  "naughty- 
naught"  as  the  students  call  it.  We  do  find  abbre- 
viations of  numerals  in  Roman  tombstone  Latin,  and 
in  carelessly  made  inscriptions  where  the  stone  cutter 
has  not  carefully  calculated  his  space;  but  I  venture 
to  say  that  we  shall  not  find  IV,  IX,  or  similar 
abbreviations  in  any  carefully  made  public  inscrip- 
tion of  the  classical  Romans.  Then  again,  if  our 
modern  inscription  is  to  be  in  their  Latin  language, 
the  letter  M  should  not  be  used  at  all ;  for,  of  course, 
it  does  not  stand  for  the  numeral  until  the  second 
century  A  D.  The  proper  numeral  sign  should  be 
employed,  which  looks  something  like  an  8  turned 
on  its  side.  But  if  the  inscription  is  to  be  English, 
why  use  Roman  numerals  in  it?  Our  Arabic  figures 
are  far  handsomer  and  infinitely  less  clumsy  than  the 
Roman  numerals,  and  we  can  be  pretty  sure  that  the 
Romans,  who  were  the  most  practical  people  that 
ever  lived  before  Americans  were  invented,   would 

22 


have  been  quick  to  give  up  their  bungling  method 
had  they  been  acquainted   with  the  Arabic. 

I  have  spoken  of  abbreviations.  Much  is  to  be 
learned  from  them  in  various  ways.  A  very  interest- 
ing deduction  has  lately  been  made  from  them  by 
Professor  Traube,  the  eminent  Latin  palaeographer. 
There  are,  as  you  know,  in  the  Vatican  Library,  two 
illustrated  MSS  of  Virgil.  About  the  age  of  one 
of  these,  the  Romanus,  there  has  been  much  discus- 
sion. Formerly  it  was  thought  to  have  been  written 
in  the  fourth  century;  but  more  recently  arguments 
have  been  adduced  pointing  to  a  later  date,  and 
now  Traube  has  shown  from  certain  abbreviations 
found  in  it  that  it  cannot  possibly  be  earlier  than 
the   sixth   century. 

The  illustrations  of  these  two  MSS  of  Virgil  de- 
serve, I  think,  far  more  attention  than  is  paid  to 
them  in  the  teaching  of  Virgil  in  our  schools.  In 
one  or  two  of  our  editions  there  are  rude  cuts  in 
outline  made  from  pretty  old  engravings  from  them; 
but  these  give  you  no  idea  whatever  of  the  originals, 
which  are  not  outline  drawings,  but  regular  paintings 
in  the  miniature  style.  The  Vatican  Library,  under 
the  very  liberal  new  policy  of  his  Holiness,  the 
present  Pope,  himself  a  Latin  scholar  of  much  ability, 
has  lately  published  photographic  facsimiles  of 
these  two  MSS  including  all  the  illustrations. 
Unfortunately  the  edition  is  limited  in  number  and 
the  price  is  high,  but  the  books  ought  to  be  found 
in  every  great  library:  e  g,  that  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity.     It    would    add   greatly    to    the    interest   of 

28 


schoolboys  and  schoolgirls  who  are  studying  Virgil 
it  they  had  copies  of  these  ancient  pictures  before 
them.  And  in  these  days  of  universal  photography 
it  ought  not  to  be  a  difficult  thing  to  bring  to  pass. 
The  teacher  might  get  permission  to  make  photo- 
graphs with  his  own  camera  from  the  library  copy 
of  the  book,  or  if  he  is  not  himself  an  expert  in 
photography,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  find  among  his 
pupils  or  acquaintances  somebody  to  do  it  for  him. 
Or  this  club  might  cause  a  set  of  photographs  to  be 
made  and  sold  at  a  nominal  price  to  its  members. 
There  is  an  excellent  article  in  French  by  De 
Nohlac  about  the  pictures,  which  might  well  be 
translated  to  accompany  them  if  the  scheme  which 
I  have  suggested  were  carried  out. 

But  to  return  to  Cicero:  not  only  was  he  doubtful 
about  some  points,  but  we  are  much  more  doubtful 
about  many  points  which  concern  him  or  the  under- 
standing of  his  writings.  For  instance,  we  talk  of 
the  style  of  Cicero,  as  if  he  had  but  one  style.  But 
what  does  he  say  about  this  himself?  At  the  age 
of  sixty,  he  thus  writes  to  Papirius  Paetus: 

"What  do  you  think  about  my  style  in  letters? 
Aren't  they  in  the  scnno  plcbcius,  the  vulgar  tongue? 
Yet  one  doesn't  use  the  same  tone  in  all  his  writ- 
ings. For  what  analogy  is  there  between  a  letter  and 
a  speech  in  court,  or  an  address  at  a  public  meeting? 
Even  in  court  I  don't  make  a  habit  of  handling  all 
my  cases  in  the  same  style.  Private  suits  of  slight 
importance  I  plead  in  the  plainer  style;  those  that 
affect  a  man's  civil  status  or  reputation,  in  the  more 

24  • 


-r 


ornate  style;  letters  I  compose  in  the  language  of 
everyday  Wit— verbis  cotidianis." 

Here,  then,  are  at  least  three  different  styles  which 
we  may  expect  to  find  at  the  same  period  in  our  great 
model,  and  this  ought  to  be— but  isn't— a   warning 
to   those   who  think   that  they   can  reach   the   exact 
date    of   a    speech    from    the    style    employed    in    it. 
And  then  another  interesting  question  about  Cicero: 
what  was  his  personal  feeling  about  religion?    This 
is  one  of  the  most  difficult  questions  to  answer  about 
any  man ;  on  no  topic  is  a  man  really  more  reserved, 
open  or  even  dogmatic  as  he  may  seem  to  be.     We 
may   be   pretty   sure   that   the   real   Cicero   does   not 
express   himself  openly  about   his  personal   religion 
in  his  public  speeches ;  and  in  his  philosophical  works 
he  is  rather  the  expounder  of  systems,  of  theories, 
and    then   again    of   ethics,   than   of   religion   in    the 
strictly    personal    sense.      There    remains    to    us    no 
source  of  knowledge  on  this  point  except  the  collec- 
tion of  over  700  of  Cicero's  Letters.     I  have  looked 
them  through  this  summer  in  the  hope  of  gleaning 
information   on   this    and   several    other   subjects    in 
which  I  am  interested.     I  can  tell  you  therefore  from 
my  own  observation  that  there  are  only  a   few  pas- 
sages in   the   letters   which   throw   any   light  on   the 
subject    of   Cicero's   personal    religion;   and   that   of 
these  only  two  seem  to  me   very  significant.     Both 
are  addressed  to  his  wife, — but  who  can  mention  her 
without  pausing  for  a  moment  to  marvel  over  that 
other  puzzle  of  Cicero's  divorce    of    Terentia    after 
over  30  years  of  married   life,   when   he   was   more 

23 


\ 


I 


than  60  years  old,  followed  as  it  soon  was  by  his 
marriage  with  a  rich  young  girl,  his  ward,  and  his 
prompt  divorce  of  her?  But  we  have  no  time  for 
this  interesting  problem  to-day.  The  first  of  the 
two  passages  in  the  letters  to  which  I  have  referred 
was  written  by  Cicero  in  one  of  those  moments  of 
despair  and  bitterness  when  the  heart  speaks  out. 
On  his  way  into  exile  he  writes  back  from  Brun- 
disium  to  Terentia:  "I  only  wish,  my  dear,  to  see 
you  as  soon  as  possible  and  to  die  in  your  arms, 
since  neither  the  gods  whom  you  have  worshifyped 
with  such  pure  devotion,  nor  men,  whom  /  have 
spent  my  time  in  serving,  have  made  us  any  return." 
This  difference  between  the  faith  of  a  woman  and 
the  worldliness  of  a  man  is  only  too  often  illustrated 
in  our  modern  life.  The  other  passage  is  of  a 
similar  nature,  though  it  was  written  nearly  ten 
years  later.  He  had  been  melancholy,  anxious,  and 
a  burden  to  those  about  him;  "but  all  these  uneasy 
thoughts",  he  writes,  "I  have  got  rid  of  and  ejected. 
The  reason  of  it  all  I  discovered  the  day  after  I 
parted  from  you.  I  threw  up  pure  bile  during  the 
night,  and  was  at  once  so  much  relieved  that  it 
seemed  to  me  some  god  worked  the  cure.  To  this 
god,  you,  after  your  wont,  will  maKe  full  and  pious 
acknowledgment." 

No  intention  expressed,  you  perceive,  of  making 
any  such  acknowledgment  himself.  This  function  is 
to  be  left  to  a  woman. 

These  two  passages  which  I  have  called  significant 
may   seem   slight   evidence   on    which   to   base   one's 

86 


•5 


Opinion  of  a  man's  attitude  toward  religion,  and  they 
would  indeed  be  slight  were  it  not  that  they  fall  in 
exactly  with  the  general  attitude  of  educated  men  in 
the  age  in  which  Cicero  lived.  Perhaps  there  never 
was  an  age  in  which  unbelief  was  wider  spread. 
The  genuine  old  Roman  gods  (except  Lares,  Pena- 
tes and  Genius,  that  is  to  say  except  the  family 
gods)  were  all  but  forgotten,  and  the  proper  way  to 
worship  them  had  become  a  topic  for  antiquarian 
research.  The  Romans  of  course  had  never  had  a 
mythology  of  their  own  such  as  the  Greeks  had — 
that  is,  a  history  of  the  dealings  of  divine  beings 
with  one  another  and  with  men.  What  is  sometimes 
thought  of  as  Roman  mythology — I  mean  the  stories 
found  in  Virgil,  Ovid  and  Horace  about  gods  and 
heroes — are  all  Greek,  not  Roman  at  all,  and  in 
Latin  literature  they  really  belong  later  than  the 
time  of  Cicero.  These  Greek  stories  were  commonly 
regarded,  Cicero  says,  as  idle  tales.  In  his  day 
the  best  educated  men  were  sceptics  or  rationalists. 
Thus  we  see  that  even  these  two  little  passages  may 
be  considered  as  pretty  trustworthy  indications  of 
one  side  of  the  character  of  Cicero. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  letters  are  a  per- 
fect mine  of  information  on  all  sorts  of  topics  relat- 
ing to  the  character  and  life  of  Cicero.  For  ex- 
ample: it  is  very  interesting  to  read,  in  such  confi- 
dential epistles  as  he  wrote  to  Atticus,  what  he  him- 
self thought  about  his  own  speeches;  how  he  laughed 
over  the  way  in  which  he  threw  dust  in  the  eyes  of 
a  jury;  or  how  thickly  he  laid  on  the  paint  in  orna- 

87 


\ 


meriting  his  account  of  the  Catiline  affair.  Then 
again  his  relations  with  Julius  Caesar  come  out  most 
clearly  in  the  letters  which  passed  between  them, 
or  in  Cicero's  letters  to  others  about  Caesar  and 
Caesar's  views  of  him.  What  a  pity  that  we  do  not 
try  to  bring  these  two  men  more  closely  together  in 
our  teaching.  We  deliberately  separate  them.  We 
set  them  in  different  years  of  the  school  course  and 
give  our  boys  no  chance  to  see  how  they  played  into 
each  other's  hands  or  against  each  other.  We  lead 
our  boys  to  think  of  them  as  always  the  deadliest 
foes ;  but  the  two  had  much  in  common.  Both  were 
lovers  of  literature.  But  what  schoolboy  ever  hears 
of  Caesar  as  a  literary  man?  They  think  of  him  as 
a  soldier,  or  as  a  constructor  of  grammatical  puz- 
zles. And  here  again  I  yield  to  the  temptation  to 
speak  of  a  point  of  syntax — but  it  shall  be  the  last 
— and  indeed  I  foresee  that  I  am  approaching  the 
end  of  these  somewhat  rambling  remarks.  The  point 
to  which  I  now  refer  concerns  the  expression  of  the 
apodosis  of  a  condition  contrary  to  fact  in  indirect 
discourse.  What  a  pity  it  was  that  Caesar  allowed 
himself  to  write  the  sentence  which  stands  in  the 
29th  chapter  of  the  fifth  book,  which  is,  being  trans- 
lated, as   follows : 

"(He  said)  that  he  thought  Caesar  was  gone  into 
Italy;  otherwise,  the  Carnutes  would  not  have 
formed  their  design  of  killing  Tasgetius,  and  the 
Eburones.  if  he  were  at  hand,  ivould  not  be  coming 
against  the  camp." 

Here  for  ivould  not  he  coming  we  have  venturos 

89 


esse — and  this  unfortunate  phrase  has  led  to  a  special 
category  in  almost  all  our  grammars.  We  are  led 
by  them  to  think  that  this  is  one  of  the  regular  ways 
of  expressing  in  direct  discourse  an  apodosis  of 
action  non-occurrent.  But  the  fact  is,  I  believe, 
that  this  is  the  only  place  in  any  Latin  author  where 
such  a  rule  is  borne  out.  In  every  other  passage 
of  the  kind  we  have  the  future  participle  with  fuisse. 
In  my  school  grammar  I  have  ventured  to  give  an 
explanation  of  this  unique  phenomenon  in  Caesar.  In 
that  passage,  the  context  clearly  shows  that  venturos 
esse  represents  the  imperfect  subjunctive  of  the  di- 
rect discourse.  But  ordinarily  the  future  participle 
with  esse  might  seem  to  repri;sent  a  future  indicative. 
Hence,  I  believe  that  to  avoid  ambiguity  the  Romans 
did  not  try  to  express  present  time  in  apodoses  of 
this  kind  in  indirect  discourse.  It  was  easy  to  avoid 
it,  and  we  ought  to  teach  our  boys  to  do  so. 

This  whole  matter  of  formal  indirect  discourse  is 
disproportionately  prevalent  in  Caesar.  I  mean  dis- 
proportionately as  compared  to  its  appearance  in  other 
writers.  The  result  is  that  a  disproportionate  amount 
of  space  is  given  to  it  in  our  grammars  and  a  dispro- 
portionate amount  of  time  in  our  teaching.  The 
poor  boy  struggles  for  weeks  over  its  problems  and 
when  he  has  mastered  them  and  gone  on  to  other 
authors  he  finds  very  little  opportunity  to  exercise 
in  them  the  skill  which  he  has  got  from  the  study 
of  Caesar.  This  consequence  reminds  me  very  much 
of  another  result  which  comes  out  of  the  stress  which 
we  are  now  laying  upon  what  is  called  Reading  at 

29 


Sight.     I    realize  that   I   am   now   about   to   step   on 
very  ticklish  ground;  and  I  want  to  begin  by  saying 
that  I  am  speaking  my  own  thoughts,  not  those  of 
my  colleagues,  for  I  do  not  know  what  they  think 
on   this  topic;  and  that  you  must   not  think  that   I 
represent  them  or  Harvard  College  or  anybody  or 
anything  but  myself.     What   I   want   to   suggest  to 
your  thoughts  is  this:   Our  boys  spend  a  vast  amount 
of  pains  in  learning  to  read  Xenophon  at  sight,  and 
then,  after  they  have  got  the  power,  they  find  that 
there  is  no  more  Greek  like  Xenophon  upon  which 
they  can  exercise  it.     And  to  a  less  degree  this  is 
true  of  Latin.     Power  to  read  Caesar  at  sight  does 
not  give  a  like  power  over  any  other  author.     Now 
understand    me.      I    do    not    mean    that    we    should 
abandon  altogether  the  teaching  of  reading  at  sight. 
It  does  undoubtedly  give  a  valuable  kind  of  power 
over  the  language,  but  on  the  other  hand  I  am  by  no 
means  sure  that   it  enables  the  student  to  carry  on 
his  studies  of  Greek  and  Latin,  after  he  gets  to  col- 
lege, with  much  greater  ease  than  students  prepared 
under  the  old  regime;  and  it  also  seems  to  me  that 
this  long  drill   in  a  single  author  in  Greek  and  a 
single  author  in  Latin  is  not  the  way  to  encourage 
students  to  continue  their  studies  of  the  classics  in 
college.     It   opens    up    to   them    no   vista    whatever 
of   the    wide   and   noble    fields    of   literature    which 
are  there  to  be  found.    The  subject  matter  of  Xeno- 
phon and  Caesar  is  too  much  of  the  same  kind — and 
that  of  a  very  narrow  kind,  being  distinctly  military. 
It  was  not  always  thus  in  the   school  course.     As 

30 


late  as  the  time  when  I  myself  was  at  school  we 
were  required  to  read  Sallust  as  well  as  Caesar  for 
the  elementary  examination ;  and  in  Greek  we  had 
to  read  not  only  Xenophon,  but  selections  from 
Plato  and  Herodotus  and  a  bit  from  Thucydides  as 
well.  Of  course  in  the  schooldays  of  our  fathers 
and  grandfathers  the  authors  read  in  schools  cov- 
ered even  a  wider  field.  They  were  not  all  writers 
of  Attic  Greek  or  of  Classical  Latin — but  what  of 
that?  they  were  great  zvriters — immortal  names — 
and  ihey  showed  boys  that  there  was  something  else 
in  the  Classics  besides  marching  by  parasangs  and 
making  speec'nes  in  indirect  discourse.  And  boys 
were  attracted  to  go  on  to  read  more  of  ancient 
literature.  Parts  of  Greek  plays  were  read;  they  are 
read  still  in  English  schools;  there  are  books  of  selec- 
tions from  Greek  tr;igedies  and  comedies  prepared  for 
the  English  schoolboy.  Ask  old  gentlemen  what 
Greek  and  Latin  books  they  remember  with  most 
pleasure,  and  ten  to  one  they  will  answer  "the  books 
of  selections  from  prose  and  verse".  And  how  much 
pleasanter  it  must  have  been  for  the  teacher  to  vary 
his  reading  with  his  pupils  instead  of  trudging  on 
year  after  year  over  the  same  road.  And  if  pleas- 
anter, how  much  better  he  must  have  taught! 

"Oh",  but  you  will  say,  "We  are  teaching  what  the 
colleges  require!"  I  reply:  that  answer  might  have 
done  once  upon  a  time,  but  it  will  serve  its  purpose 
no  longer.  Look  at  the  changes  in  the  college  ad- 
mission requirements  during  the  past  twenty  years. 
Many   of  them   are   in  answer   to   the   demands   of 

31 


secondary   schools.     In   these  days   of  organizations 
01  teachers-of  organizations  such  as  yours,  for  in- 
stance-you  may  depend  upon  it  that  changes  which 
you  agree  upon  as  good,  and  for  which  you  can  give 
strong   reasons,   are   pretty   sure    to   be   adopted       I 
vvould  not,  then,  have  you  love  Cxsar  less,  or  Xe-c- 
pnon  less,  but  I  would  have  you  love  Greek  and  Latin 
literature   more,  and   I   would   have  vou   make  your 
pupils  love  it  a  great  deal  more.     To  be  sure  this 
means  more  work  for  a  time  for  some  teachers  who 
have  not  familiarized  themselves  sufficiently  with  the 
literatude,  but  what  of  that?     We  are  all   workers 
and  there  stretches  before  us  the  many  weeks-some 
people   think   the   too   many   weeks-of   the   summer 
vacation.    I  don't  know  how  it  is  with  you,  but  with 
me  that  is  about  the  only  period  in  the  vear  when  I 
have  any  time   for  new  work  or  for  the  review  of 
old-time  to  sit  imder  a  tree  with  a  pipe  and  -t 
introduced  to  an  ancient  author  whom  I  have  never 
met  before;  or  time  to  feel  about  me  once  more  the 
charm   of  the   immortals  whom  I   learned   to   know 
long  ago.    And  we  must  take  some  of  that  time   or 
some  other  time,   to  consider  the  question    why 'we 
teach   the  classics  at  all.     The  old  answers  to  this 
question   will   no  longer   serve.     We  can   no  longer 
contend  that  the  acquisition  of  two  dead  languages 
and  a  certain  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  works 
composed  over  2,000  years  ago,  are  the  best  prepara- 
tion which  all  boys  and  girls  can  have  for  all  the  de- 
mands of  life.    But  neither  is  any  subject,  no  matter 
how  modern,  an  adequate  preparation  for  all  the  de- 

32 


mands  of  life.     Nobody  could  hold  such  a  view  of 
Physics  or  Psychology  or  Philosophy  or  Mathema- 
tics, and  there  is  no  longer  any  reason  why  it  should 
be  held  of  Classics.     Two  or  three  hundred  years 
ago,  this  was  not  the  case.     Men  went  to  school  to 
the  ancients  as  their  best  teachers  in  all  matters,  and 
the  men  of  those  days  were  not  mistaken.    When  the 
Greek  and  Roman  literatures  were  rediscovered  after 
the  Dark  Ages  and  people  began  to  read  about  the 
ancients,  they  found  themselves  inferior  to  those  an- 
cients in  very  many  points  of  civilization  and  learn- 
ing.    They  felt  like  children  before  their  teachers; 
or   rather,  they  had   for   the  ancients   a   feeling  of 
veneration  which  few  children,  I  am  afraid,  have  for 
their  teachers  to-day.    They  looked  upon  the  ancients 
as  endowed  with  the  profoundest  sort  of  learning, 
which  had  been  handed  down  from  one  nation  to 
another,  from  Egyptians  to  Greeks,  from  Greeks  to 
Romans.     They  were  dazzled  by  the  great  produc- 
tions of  Greece  and  Rome  as  compared  with  the  bar- 
ren    centuries    immediately    preceding    themselves. 
And  it  is  wonderful  how  long  this  respectful  atti- 
tude towards  the  ancients  survived.    It  survived  long 
after  great  world-changing  inventions  such  as  gun- 
powder or  printing;   long  after  epoch-making   dis- 
coveries such  as  that  of  oxygen  and  of  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood;  and  long  after  the  composition  of 
modern  literatures.    Shakspere  and  Bacon  came  and 
went ;  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  lived  and  died ;  a  new 
world  was  discovered  in  America;  and  still  people 
talked  as  if  the  ancients  were  in  some  mysterious 

33 


way  a  higher  order  of  beings,  superior  in  every  thing 
to  moderns.  This  opinion  prevailed  until  half  way 
through  the  nineteenth  century,  but  nobody  would 
seek  to  defend  it  now. 

I  remember  that  Professor  F  D  Allen*  once  said 
that  in  former  times  men  approached  the  ancientJ 
On  their  knees.  We  no  longer  assume  this  attitude. 
We  do  not  study  Greek  and  Latin  because  we  think 
that  the  ancients  were  blessed  with  a  higher  civiliza- 
tion than  our  own  and  we  cannot  pretend  that  this 
study  affords  more  than  a  partial  training  for  life. 
The  overidealization  of  the  ancients  has  perhaps  done 
more  real  harm  to  the  cause  of  classical  studies  than 
any  other  factor.  You  remember  how  the  Athenians 
got  tired  of  hearing  Aristides  called  the  Just,  and 
voted  for  his  ostracism.  So  it  was  that  men  wearied 
of  hearing  that  the  ancients  and  their  literature  were 
infinitely  superior  to  everything  modern, — until  at 
last  it  is  asserted  in  some  quarters  that  the  classics 
have  not  even  a  disciplinary  value  in  the  education  of 
young  pupils.  This  notion  is  of  course  as  mistaken 
as  the  other,  and  the  people  who  put  it  forward  are 
generally  people  who  know  little  or  nothing  about 
the  manner  in  which  classical  studies  are  pursued  at 
the  present  time.  The  fact  is,  as  I  have  said,  that 
our  attitude  has  wholly  changed.  Classical  studies 
have  in  recent  times  shared  in  the  great  progress 
made  in  all  studies.  We  now  look  upon  the  ancients 
as  men  like  ourselves;  they  were  human,  therefore 


^From  one  of  his  unpublished  lectures  I  have  drawn  much 
of  the  latter  half  of  the  preceding  paragraph. 

84 


they  often  erred.  We  are  not  afraid  to  find  fault 
with  what  is  feeble  or  even  really  mistaken  in  ancient 
literature.  Formerly,  all  ancient  writers,  not  merely 
the  greatest,  were  venerated;  but  we  no  longer  think 
of  applying  the  same  standards  of  comparison  to 
compositions  of  different  periods  or  by  different 
kinds  of  men  or  by  the  same  man  at  different  times 
in  his  life.  While  every  scholar  knows  that  almost 
all  our  forms  of  modern  literature  are  based  upon 
the  Greek,  and  while  it  is  universally  admitted  that 
in  some  literary  forms  the  Greeks  were  gifted  far 
beyond  any  modern  people,  yet  on  the  other  hand 
there  are  works  in  Greek  which  are  merely  trivial 
or  even  contemptible.  Again,  take  the  matter  of 
civilization ;  nobody  should  pretend  that  the  Greek 
civilization  was  superior  to  ours  in  all  respects.  If 
we  could  take  a  train  and  travel  to  ancient  Athens, 
I  think  that  we  should  find  ourselves  on  the  whole 
pretty  uncomfortable  there.  To  be  sure,  many  beau- 
tiful things,  far  surpassing  what  we  see  in  modern 
cities,  would  be  all  about  us;  but  on  the  other  hand 
we  should  miss  many  appliances  for  physical  comfort 
which  we  have  gained  through  modern  invention 
and  which  we  have  come  to  think  of  as  among  the 
necessaries  of  life.  And  more  than  this,  it  can 
scarcely  be  doubted  that  the  ancient  Athenians  were 
vastly  our  inferiors  in  private  morality,  in  humanity, 
and  in  regard  for  law.  But  the  comparison  of  civi- 
lizations of  different  nations  and  ages  is  an  ex- 
tremely dangerous  thing,  if  we  try  to  say  that  one  is 
higher  than  the  other.     This  is  because  civilization 

35 


I 


/ 


is  not  determinable  mathematically.  To  one  man 
civilization  may  mean  clean  streets,  to  another  it 
may  mean  sculpture.  We  need  to  understand  the 
man  and  his  surroundings  before  we  can  postulate 
anything  about  his  position  in  the  scale  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  at  the  presen*  time  scholars 
are  more  and  more  approaching  the  ancients  and 
their  literature.  We  come  to  them  wishing  to  under- 
stand them  rather  than  to  lavish  upon  them  fulsome 
praise  or  to  blame  them  for  the  lack  of  attributes 
which  they  could  not  possibly  possess.  I  am  re- 
minded here  of  another  saying  of  Professor  Allen's. 
He  once  remarked:  "We  think  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  as  ancients;  but  when  they  were  alive,  they 
thought  themselves  as  modern  as  anybody."  This 
19  the  true  spirit  which  ought  to  actuate  us;  to  try 
to  understand  the  ancients  as  men  of  like  clay  with 
ourselves,  and  to  recognize  in  their  literature  the 
outgrowth  of  influences,  and  to  seek  to  learn  what 
these  influences  were. 

But  we  must  not  be  content  with  this.  If  a  teacher 
has  not  tried  to  show  his  pupils  not  merely  the  influ- 
ence of  Virgil's  own  times  upon  Virgil,  but  also 
Virgil's  influence  on  the  history  of  poetic  literature 
that  has  followed,  he  has  not  done  his  duty  to  that 
great  author;  he  has  left  him  as  an  isolated  phe- 
nomenon. If  a  teacher  has  not  tried  to  show  his 
pupils  that  it  is  the  mfluence  of  living  thought  that 
gives  rise  to  what  we  call  rules  of  syntax,  not  rules 
of  syntax  that  govern  the  expression  of  living 
thought,  he  well  deserves  the  opprobrious  epithet  of 

36 


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^1 


gerund-grinder.    If  you  reflect  over  what  I  have  said 
about  syntactical  points  to-day,  you  will  see  that  the 
former   is   the  line   from   which   I   have  approached 
them.     Thus   it   may   appear  that  perhaps   after   all 
there  has  been  a  certain  unity  in  what  I  have  termed 
my  -rambling  remarks".   Possibly  you  may  recognize 
in  them  a  kind  of  plea  for  the  liberal  literary  study  of 
the  classics.     Not  literary  study  in  the  sense  of  that 
definition  which  I  once  heard:   "Literary  study;  yes; 
that's  where  you  all  sit  round  and  somebody  reads 
the  Greek  out  loud,  and  then  you  all  say  fine!"   Not 
this  at  all— but  that  general  literary  study  which  must 
be  based   upon   the   understanding  of  three  things: 
first,  the  influences  of  time  and  surroundings  which 
led  the  author  to  write  what  he  has  written ;  second- 
ly, what  was  the  author's  message  to  his  contempora- 
ries ;  thirdly,  what  ought  to  be  his  message  to  us.    If 
we  have  no  time  for  the  study  and  teaching  of  these 
principles,  let  us  consider  whether  we  have  not  been 
devoting  too  much  time  to  other  things:  to  syntax, 
for   instance,  studied  for  the  mere  sake  of  syntax, 
studied,  for  example,  for  the  sake  of  mere  categories, 
a   sort  of  pigeonholing,  of  which  a  great  deal  too 
much  is  done  to-day  in  this  land;  or  to  reading  at 
sight,  for  the  sake  of  a  facility  which  will  lead  to 
nothing  but  the  passing  of  an  examination;  or  to  the 
marking  of  quantity,  particularly  of  "hidden  quan- 
tity",  with   which  boys   should   seldom,  if  ever,   be 
troubled.     If  we  have  been  mistaken  in  these  or  in 
other  ways,  it  is  never  too  late  to  change  our  methods. 
For,  depend  upon  it,  the  salvation  of  the  study  of  the 
Classics  is  in  nobody's  hands  but  our  own. 

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